Mizzou women put up valiant effort in loss to Illinois
Throughout the season, Mizzou women’s basketball coach Kellie Harper has asked for fight and grit from her team.
Though the Tigers lost to Illinois 70-62 Wednesday night at Mizzou Arena, ending the Tigers’ five-game winning streak, Harper said she saw the toughness she’s been locking for.
“In terms of grading their toughness, that was probably a pretty good outing for us to be able to withstand some gut punches,” Harper said. “… I think there was a lot of grit out there.”
The Tigers struggled to settle in against a physical Illinois team that has averaged a 30.875-point margin of victory in its first eight wins. Mizzou did not hit a single one of its first 12 shots from the field.
“We didn’t have a big ole plan B on that one,” Harper said. “We’re still running the same offense. We missed a lot of layups and I thought we missed some open people for some kicks. And we just kept talking through, ‘Hey, we’ve got to make those and we’ve got to find these kicks.’ And fortunately, we were just able to grind it out.”
But the Tigers began to settle in and cut what was a 10-2 lead with 3:08 left in the first quarter to a 12-10 Illinois advantage before the Illini took a 14-10 lead into the second quarter.
“Some games we play are pretty, some games we play are not pretty,” Harper said. “And you got to be OK when it’s not pretty because they’re not always going to look good.”
Illinois extended back to an eight-point lead early in the second quarter. But Mizzou used a 7-0 run to make it 18-17 with 6:45 left before halftime.
The Tigers stayed within 5 points for a few minutes. But Illinois was able to build as far as a 32-21 lead before taking a 34-26 advantage into halftime.
Second half
The Tigers came out of the break hot and cut the lead to 38-34 with 7:17 left in the third and the lead remained single digits until the final 6 seconds of the game.
A Lisa Thompson fast break layup made it 50-45 with 51 seconds left in the third. Then Shannon Dowell hit a layup to cut the Illinois lead to 50-47 going to the fourth.
The Tigers stayed close early in the fourth, even cutting the lead to 56-55 with 4:56 left to play after a Chloe Sotell 3.
The Tigers had a chance to down the stretch. But trailing 60-58, Mizzou’s 3-point attempt to take the lead was off and the Tigers had to start fouling.
“Going into this game, if you’d have said, ‘Hey, it’s a two-point game with about a minute left,’ I’d have felt pretty good about it,” Harper said.
Illinois hit its free throws the rest of the way and extended to the final margin with eight makes from the stripe in the final minute.
“One more shot,” Harper said. “One more shot either way. And, you know, maybe you’re interviewing a winning coach right now.”
Stats
Grace Slaughter led Mizzou with a double-double of 19 points and 10 rebounds to go with three assists. But her six turnovers helped build a team total of 18, leading to 18 Illinois points off turnovers.
“They really packed the paint and props to them for just really shading my left hand,” Slaughter said. “I’ve got to be able to calm myself down and just get to two feet when I need to and look for the pass out.”
Thompson added 11 points and was 5-of-5 from the field for a season high. She added three rebounds.
“Where she really excelled and really helped us out there, in particular in that first quarter when our offense was breaking down and we weren’t able to execute the way we needed to, she has the capability to play one-on-one as well as probably anybody on our team,” Harper said. “She can go play one-on-one and get some opportunities, get a shot off. And that was, I thought that was huge for us in that first half.”
Dowell missed double-digits in the scoring column for the first time this year, ending with nine on 2-of-11 shooting overall and a 5-of-6 day at the free-throw line. But the 5-foot-10 guard grabbed seven rebounds to help power Mizzou to a 36-34 lead in total rebounds.
“Oh man, I’m so proud,” Harper said. “I’m so proud. If you told me before the game, ‘Coach, you’re going to out rebound them,’ I’d say there’s a real good chance we’re gonna win that game. And I mean, that’s still a true statement. There was a really good chance.”
Sotell added nine rebounds, while Jordana Reisma had four blocks.
Mizzou shot 21-of-55 (38.2 percent) from the field, 8-of-25 (32 percent) from 3 and 12-of-14 (85.7 percent) from the free-throw line.
“We’re never going to settle, we’re never going to say it’s OK,” Harper said. “But there’s a lot that I’m really encouraged about and there’s a lot that I’m excited about.”
Postgame press conference
Here is the full video of Harper, Slaughter and Dowell after the game.
Up next
Mizzou (9-3) will head east to face Saint Louis on the road at 2 p.m. Sunday.